Front Page Archive - 2015

Here are the photos and articles that have appeared on the
front pages of the MAS website during 2015.

New images in the Showcase! A variety of images taken by MAS
members showing off the depth of talent in our membership. Want to
learn how to take images like this?
Join us! See these and other images in our
Showcase

Views from our new G Scope and recommissioned F Scope. MAS
members Jeff Kraehnke, Paul Borchardt, Tamas Kriska, Agnes Keszler,
and Steve Volp all took part in some of these pictures. With
exciting results we're seeing, don't you want to learn how to do
imaging? See these and many more images in the
Showcase.

A spectacular planetary conjunction! From now until the middle
of November, there is an incredible conjunction of the planets Venus,
Jupiter and Mars in the eastern sky which you can see just before
sunrise. The show starts by 5:00AM and ends with twilight. If you
have never seen planets in the sky, here is your opportunity. Venus
is especially bright! See other images in our
Showcase.

5 views of the Total Lunar Eclipse. Paul Borchardt took these
images with his 800mm f/8 attached to our "A" Scope. The exposures
go from 1/180th second to 8 seconds for the total phase of the
eclipse. The open house was extremely successful with a estimate of
200 guests! See more images in the
Showcase.

The
Z UMa Project
is an MAS activity promoting the observation of variable stars,
especially those new to the endeavor. Click on the image at the left
for a full view, but note we'd like to see a lot more data points.
You can contact Neil Simmons or Gene Hanson if you're looking for
help. Use the following email:
varobs@milwaukeeastro.org.

What's New in the Showcase! Here is a selection of images
taken by MAS members Tamas Kriska, Dennis Roscoe, and Jeff Kraehnke.
For details on the images, visit our
Showcase.

Our new F-Scope! Our old C14 Celestron has a new mount (a CGE
PRO computerized equatorial mount) and
now fitted with a Hyperstar allowing f/1.9 imaging while retaining
f/11 for visual. At f/1.9 and a standard DSLR, it gives an amazing
2.4 degree field of view. One of the first test images is shown here:
M8, the Lagoon Nebula.

The new G-Scope! Our new Celestron EdgeHD 14 in the Z Dome.
It was mounted in the early evening of June 27th and saw first light
that very night with test images of M57, M13, and M51. It will
become fully operational very soon and it can all be done from the Z
Dome control room.

The
Z UMa Project
is an MAS activity promoting the observation of variable stars,
especially those new to the endeavor. Click on the image at the left
for a full view, but note we'd like to see a lot more data points.
You can contact Neil Simmons or Gene Hanson if you're looking for
help. Use the following email:
varobs@milwaukeeastro.org.

Observatory Director Gene Hanson from last summer giving his talk
about Pluto at the New Berlin Library. The talk is designed for the
general public and was about the status of Pluto in our Solar
System. Gene will be giving this
talk again at the
Milwaukee Astronomical Society
Observatory on August 7th for our
Open House night.
Mark your calendar. The talk will be given regardless of the
weather.

Image of the Venus Jupiter Conjunction taken on the MAS Observatory
grounds by longtime member Tom Schmidtkunz. The bright "star" is
Venus and Jupiter is just to the upper left. These two "stars" point
to the star Regulus (the brightest star in the constellation Leo)
which is at the far upper left. Tom used his Canon T3i DSLR, with a
Canon 28-135 lens, shot at about 70mm. It was a 5 second exposure.
Click here to see
this and other MAS member images in our Showcase.

It's all about Jupiter! With the planet high in the sky, it's been a
prime target for those doing imaging. These 9 different views of the
planet Jupiter were all taken this year by 3 MAS members: Lee Keith, Paul Borchardt, and Tamas Kriska. Find these and more in the
Planets area of the Showcase.

Image of the rotation of the planet Jupiter by MAS member Tamas
Kriska. He used the Buckstaff Telescope at our observatory
which is a 12.5 inch, f/7.4 reflector. The picture was taken
with a 2X barlow at prime focus with his Canon 60D DSLR. The individual
images were taken from a VGA movie (essentially taking the best
images out of many) over 4.5 hours and then combining them using
AutoStakkert with post processing in Photoshop
to create this final animated GIF.Click here to see
this and other MAS member images in our Showcase.